


Make Do

by navaan



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Getting Together, OT3, POV Female Character, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 21:51:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5471969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaby learns more about her partners and follows Napoleon's advice, because it suits her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstaudrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/gifts).



Gaby had lived too long, waiting for things to finally happen. She had learned that if you want for things to go your way you needed to _make_ them. 

She wasn’t sure she’s made for a life where you have to sit around in safe houses, because that reminds her too much of spending her days in her shop, away from the prying eyes of neighbors and and passing pedestrians, because you never knew which one of them had it in for you. In East German everyone could be a Stasi informant. And Gaby had known from an early age that because of her father, she’d always be under scrutiny and lived with it as long as it had been necessary.

That was how she had come to work for Waverly, changing one life of hiding from view for a life of keeping different secrets.

“So this is the life I signed up for?” she asked, watching Napoleon, wearing expensive suit pants and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a white apron completing the ensemble. Gaby grinned. It reminded her much of her first night with him in another safe house in West-Berlin. When she looked over at her other partner, sitting in the arm chair to the left, she had to chuckle. Illya was watching Napoleon with something that didn’t exactly settle between frown and raised eyebrow and when he noticed Gaby watching him, he cleared his throat and said: “The apron doesn’t match the burgundy shirt, Cowboy.”

Gaby chuckled softly, but Napoleon was unperturbed as he continued to chop herbs for his pasta sauce. “I’m sorry, Peril. I’m not taking your fashion tips and I’ll not have you interfere in my kitchen.”

“It’s serious business, Illya,” she said and shrugged. When she had planned on leaving Berlin and East-Germany behind, she could never have imagined that she would end up spending most of her time with a KGB agent and a snobbish, self-assured American. For the most part it had turned out well, even if she still wasn’t always entirely sure she would ever really know or understand her new partners.

“Food is serious business,” Napoleon agreed with her earlier statement. “Both of you have no idea how to enjoy the finer points of life.”

“Fancy food in run down safe houses?” Gaby asked. 

“You take whatever you can get.” Napoleon shrugged, unconcerned and focused on the task at hand. His focus was something she found very appealing. She was impulsive and emotional sometimes, but Napoleon was always calm, efficient, well prepared and organised. She hadn’t yet found an obvious crack in his armor, but looking for one was fast becoming one of her favorite past times. 

“Is that the depth of American philosophy, Cowboy?” Illya muttered.

“Sounds like smart advice,” Gaby said. “Make do.”

To her surprise Napoleon turned around, forgetting his pasta sauce just for this moment and grinned. “There’s home for you yet, Ms. Teller.”

She shook her head. Napoleon was often talking like he thought of himself as her mentor or superior, but it had stopped annoying her, when she realized she talked like that to everybody, sure of himself and his abilities.

* * *

For the first few weeks or months they all tiptoe around each other, not sure what to expect from their partners. Illya remained stand-offish and argued with Napoleon about everything. Napoleon answered with his typical exasperated expression and rolled his eyes at both of them. And Gaby - well, she reminded both of them at every turn, that she was not the damsel in distress here. She was no princess in the tower. She could take care of herself.

If reminding them meant sometimes dishing out slaps, coming home sweaty and dirty from fixing race cars in her spare time or driving Solo up the wall by combining expensive clothing with cheap accessories, she could certainly deal with it.

After a few more missions something changed though. Gaby, used to watching other people’s actions cautiously for signs of their true thoughts or tells, could feel the atmosphere become more relaxed. It started with Illya clapping Solo repeatedly on the shoulder in a friendly fashion and Napoleon putting a hand on the small of her back at different occasions. Everyone was giving out these reassuring little touches, while going on with the banter and insults just like before.

When she noticed

* * *

Illya dragged Napoleon through the door of their suite. There was a cut on his cheek that was bleeding and Napoleon looked like he had been drugged or worse. “You lay down now, Corboy,” Illya ordered, as Gaby was up already gathering supplies to treat their wounds.

“It’s not that bad,” he slurred.

“Is bad,” he said. “He fell out a window.”

“I jumped.”

“Of course,” Illya agreed with disbelieving tone.

Gaby did not need to ask questions.

* * *

She was talking engines with one of their targets, while at the back of the room, Solo was making his rounds, expression deceptively open and amused. He was flirting and it was only a question of which woman would be his lucky entry card to this organisation.

It should have annoyed her, instead she watched, interested.

There was always something interesting about watching a professional at work.

* * *

She was the one to push him down on the bed the next night and revelled in the moment of undisguised surprise on his face. Then the expression changed back to his normal amused and practically neutrals smile. It drove her mad when that happened, but for a moment she held back, sitting in his lap, her short orange dress pulling beside her legs on the bed, but not covering much where she was touching him now. She rolled her hips and he gasped, involuntarily, staring up at her.

Then she let go, leaning down to kiss him like she had wanted to do since he’d taken the blonde heiress to bed yesterday. This was what she wanted, here and now.

His mouth quirked and he was about to say something so she leaned down, hands on either side of his head and kisses him. Gaby Teller was no heiress, no high-society girl, no actress and now alluring art thief, but she knew her own appeal. And she had figured something out about Solo that none of the other girls would ever get to see: He didn’t make moves on the people he cared about.

Good then, that she had no problem making the first move.

He did not shy away from the kiss or even try to pretend that he didn’t want this. She hadn’t expected it either. His whole life was centered around hedonism and not denying yourself unnecessarily. He still reached up to hold her shoulders and stop her, to whisper against her lips: “What brought this on? Not that I’m complaining.”

“Enjoying the finer points of life,” she said and pressed down to kiss him again and he let go of her. She snatched one of his hands and settled it against her breast, enjoying the heavy feel of it through the fabric. Then she pulled herself away to sit up and he followed her into a sitting position, she still settled in his lap, so that he could get at the zipper at her back, freeing her. It was her who pulled up the dress and him who flung it away, looking at her, wearing nothing but her underwear and earrings and too expensive shoes now. 

He rolled them around and kissed her and she streaked a hand through his to perfect hair to mess it up a little, feeling a thrill go through her when he allowed it.

“Tell me then”, he asked, settled above her: “What do you want?”

The question, spoken in a serious and calm town, sent a thrill through her body. She was wet and ready already, but the thought that he was in any way giving even more power over this encounter to her excited her beyond words. “I want you,” she said and pushed at his shoulder to make him slide down her body, settle between her legs, “to pleasure me.”

He pressed a kiss against her inner thigh and whispered against her skin: “I’m at your command.”

* * *

It changed everything and nothing between them in all the right ways.

They never talked about it. They went on working well together, saying each other what needed to be said without holding back. And sometimes at night they sought each other out.

It wasn’t a big deal. It was important.

Illya, like all spies attuned to other people and their moods caught up on it, but didn’t bring it up either. He just looked at some occasionally, considering and closed-off. He still protected Gaby from gun shots and pulled Napoleon from a burning house and still patted them on the back and took their hands. But something there had changed.

It wasn’t a strain yet, just _there_. 

Gaby noticed it in the way Illya called Solo “Cowboy” without putting any heat into it, in the way he way he was always at all times aware where the two of them were, when they were forced to sharing a space for a prolonged amount of time, and in the way he thanked Napoleon for food, or help or even inconsequential insults.

It took her that long to figure that out.

Illya had found something he wanted, too. But he wouldn’t approach someone he thought had made his choice already.

He didn’t examine the complicated thing that was growing between Gaby and Napoleon for the same reasons that Napoleon avoided making moves on people he actually cared about.

 _Men_ , she thought and rolled her eyes. _Were would they be without me?_

How convenient for all of them that Gaby had no trouble making the first move.

* * *

The first night they all spent in the same bed, Illya plastered to Napoleon’s side, who was resting with his head on Gaby’s shoulder, their legs tangled, Gaby way playing with a lock of his hair, watching Illya’s relaxed expression with some satisfaction.

Napoleon was thinking of himself as the person who had taught them something about enjoying the finer things in life, but Gaby knew she had things to pass on too. All three of them were balancing out.

Yes, she could work with this. 

Quite well.Perhaps that was what freedom was supposed to feel like.


End file.
